Lafayette City-Parish Council To Consider Additional $500,000 In Pay Raises

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — The fate of a proposed pay raise for Lafayette city-parish employees will be decided when the City-Parish Council meets Thursday to adopt next year's budget.

The Advocate reports the budget that City-Parish President Joey Durel sent to the council earlier this year included a 2.5 percent raise for city-parish government's 2,265 employees.

At issue on Thursday is a budget amendment by Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux to add another half percent to the raise, bumping it up to 3 percent and raising the expense from about $2.8 million to $3.3 million.

Some council members have questioned whether the additional $500,000 might strain the city-parish budget, which is just beginning to recover after a few tight years of weak tax collections and rising health care and retirement expenses.